One of the most enduring traditions of our family’s Halloween festivities is watching fright movies, scary movies, horror films — whatever you want to call them. There are certain films that stand out on our list of “spook-tacular “ cinema. Five come to mind very quickly:
1. The Haunting made in 1963 and helmed by Indiana director Robert Wise with Julie Harris, Clair Bloom, Russ Tamblyn, and Richard Johnson.
2. House on Haunted Hill, a 1959 film produced and directed by Hollywood schlockmeister William Castle and starring the delightfully hammy Vincent Price
3. Halloween, the 1978 slasher film that John Carpenter co-wrote and directed. Carpenter also wrote the memorable and instantly recognizable music score for the movie.
4. Arsenic and Old Lace, the 1944 black comedy directed by Frank Capra that starred Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, and Peter Lorre.
5. Ghostbreakers, a 1940 film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.
Four of the films are shot in black and white and one is in color. All are fairly old with Halloween being the most recently made. It’s only 35 years old and the director and some of the cast members are still active in movies. Arsenic and Old Lace was actually filmed in 1941 but had to wait until the first run of the Broadway stage play was completed before it could be released. The setting of The Haunting is supposed to be upstate Massachusetts but the film was actually shot in England. The House on Haunted Hill was first scripted as a straight-up horror/murder mystery, but as shooting began, Price, Castle, and leading lady Carol Ohmart decided to inject a little sarcastic humor into the dialog and ad-lib a few one-liners. The leading man/hero Richard Long picked up on this as well and has several snappy one-liners to his credit.
All the five films have loads of trivia and gossip whirling around them. Halloween was loosely based on a story called the “Baby Sitter Murders” and took place over a years time, but due to budget restraints director Carpenter and producer Irwin Yablans decided to have all the action of the film occur over one night — the spookiest night of the of the year. They also found to their delight that no movie had ever been called Halloween before. Anne Lockhart, daughter of actress June Lockhart was signed to play Laurie Strode but because she had previously signed to be in cast of the TV show Battlestar Galactica which was in production, she had to leave the filming. Carpenter replaced her with Jamie Lee Curtis. Curtis had acted in several television programs including a featured role in the series Operation Petticoat, but this would be her first movie role. Carpenter claimed he cast her in homage to her mom Janet Leigh who was in Psycho. English actor Donald Pleasence was cast as Loomis the psychiatrist after both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee turned the role down because of the low pay. Lee has admitted that turning the role down was the worst mistake of his career. Pleasence was recognizable to U.S. audiences from his many appearances in American films and television but Dr. Sam Loomis in the Halloween film series became his signature role.
Cary Grant was cast as Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace by Warner Brothers Studios after they could not secure the services of Bob Hope from Paramount Studios. Grant never liked the role even though he was lauded for his comic performance. He thought Hope could have done a much better job. Most everyone agrees that Grant’s performance holds the film together, however. Raymond Massey does an effective job with the role of the psychopathic Jonathon Brewster and Peter Lorre is a hoot as Dr. Einstein.
Horror films, like anything else, are a matter of personal taste. My family tends to enjoy the shivers of implied horror stories. Many would consider my choices “boring” or out of date, I know, but I must confess that I dislike explicit violence and gore in films. They tend to lose their shock value quickly and are often used to cover the shortcomings of a bad script or poor direction. I know, you are asking, “What about Halloween?” Well there is actually very little explicit violence in that film. Most of the violence is implied. It is long on suspense and is extremely well directed, however.
While there are other fright films that I will probably watch during October, these five are on the definite must see list. They are like old friends coming by to trick-or-treat at my house. It just would not be Halloween without them and that would be a shame. snicewanger@yahoo.com